InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
MANILA, Philippines -- What Chief Justice Renato Corona enjoyed when he purchased a penthouse at the Bellagio 1 condominium in Taguig City was not a discount but a voluntary price reduction by Megaworld Corp. on a unit that had suffered “water damage” and the only one still not sold.
Summoned to testify for the prosecution at Corona’s impeachment trial Tuesday, Megaworld vice president for marketing and sales Noli Hernandez also said that before selling the penthouse, the developer had already reduced the price of the apartment from the original P24 million to P19.6 million because of the water damage.
And based on this price, he said, the Coronas were allowed a discount of P5 million -- not the P10 million alleged by the prosecution -- bringing down the actual purchase price to P14.5 million.
"We were about to finish the unit (but) unfortunately there was a typhoon and the unit sustained some water damage ... and we deliberated on what to do next,” Hernandez said. “We were thinking of maybe re-packaging, redoing, redesigning (the unit), but it is going to cost us more to have it redone. [So] it made more economic sense to give a steep discount from P24 million to P19.6 million. So there was a reduction of P5 million, which is the cost of us redoing and going to the market and sell(ing) this unit and, as I’ve mentioned, this was the last penthouse unit in the building," Hernandez told the court.
Hernandez said the Coronas just happened to purchase the unit at a time Megaworld decided to sell it in its existing condition at a "steep discount."
And because the Coronas were paying “almost in cash,” they were given a 15 percent discount, or P3 million. They were later given a P2 million discount, or a total of P5 million.
Hernandez acknowledged that such a hefty price reduction by Megaworld was "highly uncommon" but explained that "it was the first time a penthouse unit ever sustained such a big damage to it. We would not have given the P5-million reduction in price had the unit not been damaged by the typhoon."
Corona’s defense lawyers said Hernandez’s testimony belied the prosecution’s allegation that the discount was a favor to the Chief Justice for favoring Megaworld in a case that had gone before the Supreme Court.
On March 31, 2004, the high court promulgated the decision, written by then Associate Justice Corona, on the case Megaworld Properties and Holdings, Inc. v. Cobarde (G.R. No. 156200).
The decision absolved Megaworld of the responsibility of paying a broker’s commission in a compromise agreement and instead ordered the opposing parties to pay the developer P5,853,793.01.
“Connecting the decision to the alleged 40 percent discount amounting to P10 million requires some manipulative thinking,” said defense spokesman Mon Esguerra.
“That Megaworld would extend to the Chief Justice the alleged discount in exchange for a favorable ruling five years earlier is incredulous. It does not make sense at all,” Esguerra added.
